Brandon Routh says he feels freer than he’s ever felt before, but the star of the stalled Superman franchise admits it took some time to recognize the opportunity for recreation.

“Every time a job doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to go, you have to wrap your head around it,” says Routh, the Iowa native who starred in the 2006 film Superman Returns.

[np-related]

Routh returns to the big screen this summer with Crooked Arrows, a far more intimate project that melds Cinderella sports genre with First Nations tradition. The actor stars as Joe Logan, a half-native lacrosse star who now runs the local casino and is looking to make it bigger. Yet, in order to get the permit to expand, he has to pass a spiritual test selected by his father. Being a proud leader of the Sunaquot Nation, dad decides Joe’s big test should revolve around lacrosse, and re-establishing “the creator’s game” within the Sunaquot community.

“I felt very honoured to play a person of Native American heritage,” he says. “It was important for me to have great reverence and that I honour the spirit of the game.”

Walking through professional insecurity with stoic integrity is something Routh has tried to perfect over the past six years. And it hasn’t been easy.

“You have to know what you can control and what you can’t, and enjoy as much of it as you possibly can. You can’t let yourself get frustrated by other people, and know that the only thing you can control is how you feel about something.”

The actor does not talk around the disappointment he felt when the Superman franchise fizzled in the wake of mediocre box-office.

“That’s pretty evident … it didn’t go the way I was expecting,” he says of the 2006 blockbuster-hopeful. “The fact is this is where I am now,” he says. “And maybe this is a better place.”